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 CHRISTIANITY IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT OBEDIENCE

CHRISTIANITY IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT OBEDIENCE

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Today in America, everybody knows the phrase 'Born again'. Evangelical Christian faith is more popular in America today, than almost at any other time in our history. There are TV stars who claim to be born again, there are singers who claim to be born again, there are football players who claim to be born again. There is more money spent on Christian Television and Christian book publishing, than at any other time in our history. There are more people attending church today, than virtually at any other time in our history. Yet, crime on the streets of our cities has increased steadily and relentlessly. That is true.

We have an anomaly in America at this present time, we have something that calls itself the Christian faith, but does not seem to radically affect the behavior of our society. Here, we have a break from the authentic classic Christianity that has been expressed through out the world, down through the centuries. Here, we have a Christian faith that does not seem to change the way people behave. It has not at all affected the incredible increase in both petty and violent crime from year to year in our society. This is a kind of Christian faith that seems to be different from the way God's Spirit has ever operated in the past. It is not producing a change in people's behavior.

Now why? Why do we face this anomaly? Why are we facing a great rise in Christian activity and you must admit, it is everywhere, it is almost sickening at so everywhere. Why are we experiencing this tremendous increase in evangelical Christianity, and yet without any real change in the morals of our society? We have a society here, that professes Christianity loudly, individuals that profess it loudly. I Think you will agree that there is no real evidence between those who claim they are Christians and those who do not other then the some biblical facts that they give mental accent to.

Now the real Gospel, is a simple and clean, Gospel. Matthew 1:21. All of us will know the words that the angel spoke to Joseph telling him about the coming birth of his son, "Mary will bear a son, "and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save his people from their sins."

Now would you just look at your translation there and would you notice the preposition, the preposition before the phrase "their sins". The preposition is "from": He will save His people FROM their sins. That is what God has promised to do for us in Jesus. Now, could I push you again by pointing out to you that there is a great difference between the word for "from" in Greek and "in", just in case you think Matthew could have fumbled over the spelling. The word "from" is "apo" in Greek. The word for "in" is "en", and it looks like that in English letters. So this is the word for "from", and that is the word used in Matthew 1:21. It is "from" their sins. The word "in", is not there, it is not there at all.

Now the great bulk of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity believe that word is "IN". Now really, truly. In practice, and often even in the way we preach and share with each another, the greater number of us translate the Gospel as if the Greek word was "in" and not "apo". In other words, we translate it as if it was "you will call His name Jesus, for He will save his people IN their sins". Now that isn't the real Gospel. And yet that is what the great majority of us who think of ourselves as evangelicals, teach.

Now really, if you are honest with me, I think you'll have to admit that the great majority of us believe that Person A may sin and Person B may sin, but Person A is a Christian, so he knows that Jesus died for him, and therefore Jesus' blood covers his sins. He may be sinning like mad and beating his wife every night, but yet he's a Christian, and so his sins are forgiven, and so he's saved IN his sins, or despite his sins. Whereas Person B is a miserable old wretched pagan, a non-Christian, and he beats his wife every night, but he does not believe that Jesus died for him, and HE is going to hell. That is normally the way we all interpret the Gospel. We really, in other words, say that the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is that one can sin with immunity, or with impunity, without being punished, and the other can sin, but IS punished. that is not the Gospel. The Gospel is not "Jesus will save you IN your sins." The Gospel is, that "Jesus will save you FROM your sins."

I do not think there is one person here that will not see what the outcome of that has been. The outcome of that truncated version of the Gospel has been a name for Christianity which is pitiful in secular society. Because secular society will say the same thing about Christians again and again, "if they practice what they preached,", "they talk about what they should do for God, but they do not do it." Indeed I put it to you, what has put you and me off ordinary church life and ordinary Christianity? Is it not seeing people, believing, preaching, arguing over doctrine, arguing over church denomination, but not living like Jesus. Now, it is really because we have perverted the Gospel. we have made it mean Jesus will save us IN our sins, not FROM our sins. That is why we get the bumper sticker, "Christians are not perfect, only forgiven." Now, do you see that the Gospel is that Jesus will save us FROM our sins, not IN our sins?

C.S. Lewis came to Jesus primarily through the writings of one man. That one man was an old 19th century Scottish preacher called George MacDonald. George MacDonald saw to the heart of what we are talking about, just very clearly. He almost put it in the same words that we have been using, he says about that verse, Matthew 1:21, "Jesus will save us from our sins." He says, "the Lord never came to deliver man from the consequences of their sins while yet those sins remained." The Lord never came to deliver us from the consequences of our sins, you see, which is usually in our minds hell, you see, while yet those sins remained. Then I will read it slowly because the logic is a little ... tricky. "That would be to cast out of the window the medicine of cure." He regards, you see, the punishment as a medicine of cure. "While yet the man lays sick, to go dead against the very laws of being." Then he says, "yet men have constantly taken this verse Matthew 1:21, to mean that Jesus came to save them from the punishment of their sins. This idea, this miserable fancy has terribly corrupted the preaching of the Gospel. The message of the good news has not been truly delivered."

Now, do you see what really he and countless others are saying? That DEATH is the wages of sin, in order to DESTROY sin. Death is not the wages of sin, that somehow you have to try to get somebody else to pay for you. Death is the wages of sin in that it DESTROYS sin. God is not sitting up in heaven saying, "How will I show these miserable creatures, that I am real mad, I am just real mad with them, and I just am real mad with their sins. I know! I will kill my own son." It is not so,. The very picture of it seems ridiculous to us. The Father hates and detests sin, and has to destroy it, and has to burn it out of existence. That is why He said, the wages of sin is death. That is why the Bible says "he who has died is free from sin," -- not from the consequences of sin. The consequences of sin is death, and death is there to destroy sin. That is the very purpose of death. The purpose of Jesus' death is to free us from our sins -- to destroy sin in us -- to free our lives from sinning. It isn't so that we will be able to go on sinning in this life, without facing the consequences of sin. God's desire in Jesus, and in Jesus' death, is to free our lives from our sins.

Please do not sit there and say, "Oh, you have destroyed my peace, you have destroyed my peace!". If you really want God with all your heart, you'll respond, you'll say, "Oh, that is what He wants, that is what He wants. Ah, I know He's a merciful Father. I know He's going to continue to forgive my sins until he can get a hold of them, but Lord I know you want rid of them now, I know that is the purpose of Jesus' death, I know you want rid of them, I know you are not going to kill me this moment just because I have something in my life that is not right, but Lord as long as I side with you and say that is why Jesus died, ok Lord, I want rid of the sin in my life." If you are sitting there with that complacent, lackadaisical attitude that says, "Ah well, I may not have all the sins out of my life, but I know that I believe Jesus died for me, so I believe I am ok anyway, I will do my best." Now, that is a perversion of the Gospel. The Gospel is not, "believe that Jesus died instead of you and do your best to please God," no. It is not "believe and try." The Gospel is, "be willing to die with Jesus, to running your own life, and come alive in the power of His Spirit to living like Him." The Gospel is not an autosuggestion.

The problem is so many people who claim they are Christians, live a Romans 7:15 experience. They have no power in their lives. "I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good, so then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do."

Now, this is NOT the experience of a defeated Christian. Even a baby Christian has the power that is stated clearly in 1 John 3:9, if you'd look at it. "No one born of God commits sin." In other words, when Paul says, "I do what I do not want," he's saying, I am not a Christian, because a Christian never does what he does not want to do, because that is the word, it is poieo, those of you who know Greek, and it is p-o-i-e-o in English letters. That is the word used in 1 John 3:9. It means "to do," it becomes poet, you know, in English, poetry, you make something, you do something. Poieo is "to do." That is what that verse says. No one born of God does sin. That is, even a little child Christian, even a little one who has just begun to know Jesus has enough power of Jesus' Spirit in his life to hold down what is wrong. That is what that verse says. A Christian knows not only the guilt taken away, but the power of sin in his life destroyed by the power of Jesus' death

I know, all of us have been taught, that sin is pervasive and nowhere near perfection at all. It is just that outwardly you are able to conform your life to what you know is true and right, that Plato could do, that Socrates could do, that Confucius could do. You read their lives, their lives that are flawless outwardly. Now, even a little baby Christian who has really dealt with Jesus and seen that God's purpose in including him in Jesus' death on Calvary was to destroy his life, to destroy his right to his life, his right to his own way, his right to plans, and his future. Those are all the rights that we defend, that actually produce sin in us eventually.

Now, those are what make us gods of our own lives. I know we all like to think, ah that is what a good red blooded American has a right to, you know, the right to his own decisions, the right to his own future, no. That is only the right of a person who is running his own life, who is trying to be his own god. It was on Calvary in Jesus you and I were included in His death, and those rights were destroyed. Now that is what it means to become a Christian. The moment we agree to that, that moment we are freed from all the resentments that comes from not getting our own way, from having other people treat us unfairly. Now, that is what it means to be a Christian. You do not do sin, you may feel sin within. You may feel anger within, you may feel resentment within, you may feel jealousy within, but you have enough power in Jesus' Spirit to hold that all down and to be outwardly a person that is pleasant to live with.

Now, do you see what I am getting at? I think a lot of us have taken the current thinking of our society, and we have used it as an excuse to say, "Well you know, I am not through to the fullness of the Spirit" or some other phrase that we use as an excuse, and "that is why, I am so hard to live with." "That is why, I lose my temper every week." "You know, I am not through to those heights of Christian sanctification that we are meant to grow into." Now, there are no heights there. An ordinary little Christian will not commit sin. He has the power, she has the power to live in conformity outwardly to what they know to be true and right.

We have been encouraged to think, "We can not help doing wrong things, you can not. With these poor little weak wills that we have, we can not, you know. We feel temper, oh we just have to let it rip, in fact if you let it rip, maybe the more you express it the more you get rid of it." That is just stupid, you know, the more you express it the stronger it grows. we have been taught to believe that we are poor puny little human beings, and after all, human beings can not be perfect, and that is the excuse we use to be absolute ogres. We do not realize that, and we are not talking about perfection, we are talking about horror stories, really. You know that we have brought ourselves up on that. we have been teaching ourselves, "you can not, you can not, your little weak will can not do it." You have enough of Jesus' Spirit in you to obey outwardly all that he says is right.

Can you be delivered from inward sins, from feeling anger, from the inclination to sin? The truth is you can, but the first step in Christianity is not believing that Jesus died instead of you, because the Bible does not say that anywhere. The Bible says Jesus died for you. It means that you could die with Him, to yourself and to all the powers within you that make you do what you do not want to do. If you are willing to identify yourself with Jesus, He through His Spirit can give you enough power and enough grace to live like Him.

If you want to be a Christian, you must identify yourself totally with Jesus. You say, Lord Jesus, I am willing to die as you did, to all the things that we human beings think we should have, to reputation, to position, to our friends and our peers praising us, to security and finances and material things. To fame, to being well-known, to being looked up to, to getting our own way, Lord Jesus, if you had nowhere to lay your head, I am willing to identify with you. , that is what becoming a Christian is: it is identifying yourself completely with Jesus, because as you do that, the power of his miraculous death on Calvary begins to destroy sin in your life, and begins to free you from your sins.

The simple Gospel is, Jesus will save you FROM your sins, not IN your sins. I really pray that you will not be hypocrites, and that none of us will be those intellectual believers who are just good people, but that you'll really come into a relationship with Jesus that will free you from your sins.

We see that our present Gospel is not producing the same results as the real Gospel produced in the past, in other societies. Now two words express the problem with our present Gospel, 'cheap grace'. That is it, honestly, cheap grace. We are preaching and living a Gospel of cheap grace, not costly grace, but cheap grace. The verse that we'd like to look at it, is one of the verses that is used repeatedly to reinforce this idea of cheap grace, and it is Romans 11:6, "But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace".

Now, that is a great and a true statement but we misuse it and we misinterpret it. Now, we are not the first, to follow this heresy of cheap grace. George McDonald, the old Scottish preacher, pointed out that, cheap grace is the idea that Jesus' death covers our sins, so that God can't see them even though they are there. Instead of the true grace, that believes that Jesus' death is there to destroy sin in us. That is what drew C.S. Lewis to the Gospel when he saw that Jesus' death is not there to cover up our sins, so that God can't see them, but Jesus' death is there to destroy sin in us, so that we can be like God. Paul said; "what shall we say then, are we to continue and sin that grace may have abound, by no means. How can we all die to sins, to live in it? Don't you know, that those that were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him, by baptism and the death, so then as Christ was raised from the death by the glory of a father, we too might walk in newness of life. We know our own self was crucified with Christ, so that the sinful body might be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin, for he who has died is freed from sin."

Now, that is not the Gospel that is being preached today. The message that the majority of us are getting goes something like this. God once decided that only those, who obeyed Him, would get into heaven. Now, God saw, that we couldn't obey them, because we all sin everyday in act, thought and word. So, He changed the condition, He punished His own Son instead of us, for our sins. Now we are told, that any of us, who believe that He did that, would get into heaven, whether we obeyed Him or not. Now, you may sit there and say, no that is not what I've got but that is what the majority of our society believes. They believe that the Gospel is this, that God once required obedience from us, but because we can not obey, He punished His own Son instead of us. Then we are told that all we need to do now is to give mental assent to this idea, and once you do, you will get into heaven.

So, the majority of people, who hear the Gospel of today, have the idea that they are now at last relieved from the fear of future retribution of any kind for their sins. They do not even have fear, which the normal agnostic has to keep him from sinning or kind of limit his selfishness. They have the idea, "well, it doesn't matter what I do, it doesn't matter about sin or obedience or anything now." They think, "obviously, God is not concerned about those things. All he wants me to do is to believe, that Christ, His Son has died for me and He will let me into heaven. If I just believe that, I am perfectly safe no matter whatever I do. I know I will be going to heaven anyway, because I do believe that Jesus died for me. I will obey what is convenient for me to obey, but any falling short in my part, will be covered by Jesus death anyway. So, really it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, whether I obey that much or that much as long as, I make good shot at it, I am going to get into heaven anyway."

That is what the majority of Christians feel, that God has changed His mind, that He once required obedience to His laws, but now He simply requires mental assent to the fact of Jesus death and that will get them into heaven. They have adopted that mental assent attitude and they've believed that is all that is required and so, of course we now have a monstrosity now in our society, called 'the "Sinning Christian".

The Christian, feels that, they have to avoid sin if they can, but if they can not, it will nor hurt them because God will forgive them. So, he does his best but he has the feeling all the time, that it does not matter even, if he does as well as a non Christian does. That is the incredible thing. Have you ever thought that? Sometimes, I have looked at people, who are not Christians at all who seem to be more moral than many who claim to be born again. Have you not felt at times, that some of these seem to have a greater sense of responsibility than many Christians we know? They love other people, they are kind to other people, they are honest and aboveboard in their business, than many Christians are. The people who claim to be Christian think they have a free ticket into heaven anyway, so there is no great constraint to particularly avoid immorality or be moral at all. They think that all God requires is for them to believe that Christ died on the cross. They think that If they just agree with this fact, and then if they do sin it is no big deal because they are safe with a home in heaven no matter what. Whereas the poor old nonchristian, who does not have that kind of cushion, he feels, well I better be as good as I can, in case there is a man up there and he is going to meet me at the end.

But, is it not true that the majority of us feel that, that is the Gospel. That God once required us to obey, but He saw we can't possibly do it so, He invented this new idea of punishing Jesus instead of us, so that, if we give mental assent to that we'd get into heaven. Of course, it is meaningless to the intelligent agnostic. Do you know that? It is meaningless. The ordinary intelligent agnostic can see nothing but injustice in a God beating His own Son, for somebody else's sin.

The ordinary agnostic thinks its madness. How can you claim that a God is just, if he kills the wrong person, for somebody else's sin. Well this is not the Gospel at all, it is not. I have already told you What the true Gospel is, "and you shall call his name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." God does not change; He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He has always wanted us to be like Him, He has always wanted us to live in accordance with His will. He did not create an Old Testament of law and obedience, and then replace it with a New Testament of indulging disobedience. God has always wanted us to be like Him, but He looked down and saw that we had used our free wills to get from the world the love that He wanted us to get from Him. Moreover He saw that by that activity over a centuries, we had perverted our own personalities, so that they were so utterly dependent and addicted to things and people for love that we could no longer obey His will for us.

Now, when He saw that, He did not then back off and say, "All right, I am content to have a group of satanic demons with me forever, who are not like me." He did not say that. He made a plan to bring us into a state where we would be able to obey as well, and so, He took our perverted little personalities that can not do good, you are right. "The good that we would we can not do, the evil we hate is the very thing we do." He took those perverted little personalities, and He destroyed and remade them in the death of His Son Jesus.

Now that death and resurrection that destroys the urgings to anger and the jealousy in each one of us, that general death and resurrection can be experienced by you and me day by day as we submit to the working of the Holy Spirit, who realizes that death and that realization in us as we live each day. That is we submit to God's will with Jesus whatever the cost or the inconvenience. Can you see that miraculous destruction of sin in each one of us, that took place in Jesus' eternal death that can be made real enough day by day? So, that we move from glory to glory, so that instead of Jesus' death being a historical static event, which we give mental assent to, as a reason for our free ticket into heaven, Jesus' death becomes a dynamic present operating principle within us, and the power that begins to deliver us from self, and from self-centeredness, and from sin. This is very costly, it is costly grace.

Grace means two things, first of all unmerited and undeserved favor, and that was costly to God, God showed unmerited and undeserved favor towards all of us in this room, because even though He could have left us in our perverted tangle personalities, He generously, of His own free grace, took us and put us in Jesus, and allowed His Son to bear the unbearable agony of having our all contorted personalities with their addiction to people's opinion onto selfishness, onto pleasure, destroyed in Jesus. Out of His own unmerited and undeserved grace and favor He did that. That is one meaning of grace and it did cost, cost to the very point where Jesus felt that He was losing touch with even His father. When Jesus died on Calvary, you died and you were raised again and as you were raised with Him, there came a new you that is at the right hand of God and is pure and holy and clean and that when the wrath of God burned into Jesus to cause Him to cry, "My God, my God why has thou forsaken Me." It was not the pain of His own soul that was hurting Him, it was the pain of all our sins, all our unclearness, all our selfishness, our pains and our strains, all our pressures and tensions, all of those were in Him and He was allowing His Father to burn those out in Him so that we were literally destroyed and remade there on Calvary. It was not just that an angry God beat up on His son instead of those of us who really ought to have received the beating. No it was not that at all. Our God is not a God who is unjust.

The truth is that in Jesus death, God did something to free you and me from that irrational streak of perversity within us that prevents us being what we want to be, that is it and you know it, you know what it is, it is actually the body of sin. Our body has been so used to living independent of God that it has come under certain habits and addictions that we can not get rid of. That is why Paul said, "For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, might be rendered inoperative and we ourselves might no longer be enslaved to sin." This is what happened in Jesus' death. God took your personality with all it is addictions and with all it is habits and He put it into His son Jesus and when Jesus died, your old self died with Him and when Jesus was raised up, God raised a version of you up that is new, clean and free and is able to obey.

The other meaning of grace is that as we submit ourselves to this death to ourselves with Jesus day by day, His death and resurrection is actualized in us, but only through our paying the price and it is a price, it is a costly price. The Holy Spirit will come to you when you are demanding satisfaction from your loved one, or when you are demanding respect and acknowledgment from a colleague at work, or when your anger is rising as somebody doesn't give you what you feel you ought to have, the Holy Spirit will come and will say to you, "You were crucified with Jesus." As he died to the unjustified treatment, the Roman soldiers were meeting out to him, so you died with Him. Now do you want to stay with Him or do you want to get off this Cross, and at that point you'll have price to pay.

You'll have to say if you want to continue to experience the power of Jesus' life in you, you will have to say, "Lord I will", I will die to what they think of me, I will die to my right to reply with anger, I will die to my right to get what I want, Lord Jesus I'd rather be with you with nothing, than on my own with everything." At that point the grace is costly. It is a daily experience of that was crucified with Christ, but that we are not yet willing to let go. That is what real grace is, and that is what the real Gospel is. You can see it is exciting in one sense, and yet it is hard and painful in another, and yet as you begin to go through scripture, you begin to see that, that Gospel makes sense of all the verses of scripture, it just. Just think -- and of that verse in 2 Corinthians 4, "He made Him to be sin who knew no sin. That we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

Think of that one in Romans 6, "We knew that our old self was crucified with Him, so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be in slave to sin, for he was died he is freed from sin". Think of that one in Romans 8, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." A new sense that Jesus died instead of us in every sense that we died with Jesus. Now above all else what is this Gospel do, or what changes us from saints into sinners? It changes us from children of darkness and the children of light, it changes our lives. So, that the world stops and stares, and begins to wonder by what power have you done this.

Gal. 5:1; "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

Romans 6:6, "We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed and we might no longer be in slave to sin." There was a time when even though you knew a thing was right, you did not want to say it because of what other people would think of you, either at work or at school or at home. And you were so preoccupied with their opinion that you did not want to say what was right, even though you knew it was right. You felt they would laugh at you or they would oppose you.

Now, God has buried that old selfish personality that is a slave to people's opinion, and He has buried it with Jesus and has raised you up in His son. There is a new unselfish you that is free from people's opinions and free from what people can do to you and that you are able to say what is right whether people respect you or whether they criticize you. That is the Gospel. The Gospel is that God has done a mighty work that is available to anyone who will obey Him.

That is why the Bible always says, "Liveth, Believeth, Liveth; Liveth, Believeth: Believeth, Liveth." Those two words are always synonymous in the Bible. Jesus actually used the word 'obey'. He said, you believe, you obey. The two words are synonymous because the work has been done that has changed you and all you have to do is be that. So, you remember he always spoke to people over cripple and he said, "Stand up" He did not say, "Do you believe that I can make you stand up." He said, on one occasion do you want to be clean but normally he said, stand up because that is the only right response to the mighty work that has been done in your personality.

Now, that emphasis on believe and obey is in Romans 10:16, "But they have not all heeded the Gospel for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?" Now, do you see that the two words are regarded as synonymous? "But they have not all heeded the Gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord who has believed what he has heard from us." So, they have not all heeded or obeyed the Gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord who has believed what he has heard from us. In other words, if they believed it, they would heeded and if they heeded, it proves that they believe it but the two are synonymous. The two are the same.

Let me give you this example. There's a contagious disease in the world, and our dear maker is saying, "I have an antidote for it." Submit yourself to these series of injections that I want to give you as you live your life day by day, and I will forgive you. Now what would happen if you started these injections but then stopped taking them? Now the only way to be cured is to continue taking them every day. You can not have the cure without taking all the injections. When God says that He forgives you, it means partly I will give it before you ought to receive it, I will give before, I will forgive you the life that you would have, if you would never had this disease, but you must submit to this series of injections of my Son's life. Now that will involve the taking away of some of your own life that you treasure, and that is the moment the evangelical world is standing back and saying, "We believe that, that is true, so we are free from the disease." Now you see, you can not be free from the disease unless you submit yourself to the treatment, but the evangelical world stands back and says, "We believe that, that if we submitted ourselves to the treatment, we would be healed and we would be cleaned. Therefore we are healed and clean. That is why the Spirit speaks to one of the seven churches in the last days and says, "You think you are rich and whole and healthy, but you are poor, blind and deceased." Now this is the state of much of our evangelicalism, because we are believing a truncated Gospel that is no Gospel, because it is simply a mental assent. It is mind game, it is not a submission of the will to our dear Savior's experience for us on Calvary.

The real problem is that you have not submitted to these series of injections and you still live for yourself and you are your own God. Why do you get angry? Think of places where you get angry. Think of people and situations that you have been angry in or at. Now why do you get angry? It is because you still live for yourself. However much you think you live for Jesus, you live for yourself. Really, you get angry because you still think you are God and everything should go your way and that is why you are such a burden in your life. You are trying to be God and you are not God. You are trying to make things go the way you want them to go and you can not and so it is frustrating. The first thing you need is for the Holy Spirit to show you these things. Now speak to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to show you these things. Secondly see that it is by faith that the old self of yours that has been crucified is actually negated in your life and is replaced by the new self in Jesus. That is it.

It is not done by killing your old self. It is not beating your body and trying to crucify yourself, it is not. The victory is it has been done. Already it has been done. God has destroyed you. He has destroyed that old, selfish, evil heart inside you. It is destroyed in Jesus and at this very moment it can be released in you and delivered. You can be delivered from it the moment you see that and believe it. That is why I say the victory is by faith. The victory is not by trying, the victory is not by striving, the victory is not by fighting or depressing or suppressing or believing or counseling. The victory is by faith and faith is two-fold. It is believing that it has been done in Jesus, that our old self was crucified with Christ and secondly it is a willingness to obey the Holy Spirit immediately and instantly, that is it. That is what the victory is and that is what faith is. It is belief and obedience to the Holy Spirit.

The victory is by faith and not by this endless reading of books or this endless attendance at more and more conferences or more and more sensitivity groups or more and more counseling. The victory is by what God has done to us in Jesus because there is a further work. There is a further work. So many of us think Jesus died for our sins so that God could forgive us so that if we sinned again we would not go to hell but we could confess the sin and God, of course, would forgive us because of Jesus. That is the first way we enter into any relationship with God and that is real that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Each time you lose your temper, each time you get angry, each time you feel resentful, each time you feel irritable, each time you feel unclean inside, each time you feel proud that is God. That is God tapping you on the shoulder and saying, "There is a further reason why My Son died. I want you to know that. There is a further reason why My Son died." That is what is happening. God does not want you to go off and try to find some method of taming this lion inside by yourself because you actually do not want him tamed. Do you know that? You may not realize it but you do not actually want him tamed. At times you like self-pity, at times you like to be irritable, at times it gives you satisfaction to be angry, so actually, you do not want him tamed and God knows that.

So it does not matter how many helps you get for taming him, you will never kill the little dear, you know, you never will. You may appear to kill him. You can say, "I will lash you with the power of positive thinking, I will kick you, I will hold you down, I will suffocate you. I am so holy I do not want anything to do with you." Actually, that is you in there. That self is you and you do not have the heart to kill that self. Actually you can not and the miracle that the Holy Spirit showed me in the Bible was that the solution to that personality of yours and mine that is so twisted that we can not control it with books or with discipline. The miracle is that Jesus knows you intimately and He knew you actually before you were born. Jesus was actually able to foresee what you would be like today. By a miracle, God took your perverted personality, that old self of yours with its sneaking desire to be jealous and proud and was able to put that self into His Son and on Calvary. He expressed the miracle that He did in eternity. Calvary is just an expression of the great miracle that God wrought on each one of us in His Son. God put your old self into His son and destroyed it. That is the key to victory in our lives.

John 16:13, "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will shew you things to come." The beginning of some hope of victory in your life and mine is when we see the solution to this problem inside you is not other people, other books, my own discipline, thinking more positively about myself, trying to build up my own esteem, it is not that. It is seeing that the solution to this is what God did to you in His Son on Calvary and then you start talking to the Holy Spirit. You should begin to ask Him to counsel you and show you, "Holy Spirit, I believe this because God's Word says it, but I will tell you I have no idea how to bring it about in my own life." That is right, you can not bring it about. So the first thing you say is, "Holy Spirit, will you show me what is down here deep in my heart. I must admit I have seen a little anger, a little jealousy, a little pride but they are not very much to bother about. I have a feeling I am not seeing things as my Father sees me so Holy Spirit, will you show me myself as my God sees me?" That is the first step. The Holy Spirit will show you. Let Him sort you out. Let him go down to the depths.

Now I would pray that you would not listen to this and go back to a pure mental assent, to an idea. I would pray that we might be among those who would begin to be changed, and to express scriptural holiness throughout the length and breadth of this land, because that is what it needs more than anything else. A lot less of the talk, a lot less of even the TV shows, and a lot more Christlike men and women who are honest and kind and do not lose their temper and make the same impression on this world as our forefathers made.

Let me give you another example.

A prisoner has been lying in a dungeon for years, shackled to the walls of his cell. While he is asleep, liberators come in and they cut the chains and they unlock the door and then they go outside into the passageway. And when the prisoner awakes, they shout into him and say, "The chains are cut, stand up. The door is unlocked, come out, you are free." Either the prisoner believes that and walks into freedom or the prisoner does not believe it and stays on the floor of the cell and thinks they are joking or he does believe it but does not want to leave the cell that he has got used to. .

It is not possible for the prisoner to lie in the cell and say, "I believe you and I am trying to escape." It is not because the person outside the door says, "But the chains are broken, the door is unlocked, you just have to stand and walk and you will be free." And the prisoner keeps crying, "I believe that and I am trying to escape." The liberator says, "No, no, you are not trying to escape." The prisoner does not say, "I believe that you cut these chains so that I would not have to escape or I would not need to escape." The liberator scratches his head and says, "What!" "Well, I believe you cut the chains so that I do not need to escape." The liberator says, "No, no the very reason I cut the chains was so that you could be free."

Now, Jesus died and took your selfish perverted personality with Him to death so that you could be free. You are free; you can walk in obedience that is why the Bible always identifies belief with obedience. If you believe that I died for you and you died with me then obey me. If you do not obey me, it is because you do not believe me or you do not want to be free, that is the Gospel. The Gospel is that God has done a work in you that has freed you from slavery to people's opinions, from slavery to physical resources for your security and you are able to be free. The Bible often talks about the experience as conversion. Convert is to turn around and the Bible talks of in those terms, it does not talk of in terms of belief and mental accent but talks of in terms of I am walking.

I am walking towards all the things that people treasure in his life. I am walking towards financial security, I am walking towards a guaranteed future, I am walking towards popularity and respect among my peers and I am walking towards satisfying myself as much as I can with all the thrills and circumstances that are available. I am walking that way and then Gospel comes to me that God has changed my personality. He destroyed me in His son Jesus and He recreated me completely with a personality that does not need to depend on those things, does not need to depend on the bank account for security, does not need to depend on praise and approval of my friends for a sense of significance, does not need to depend on outward circumstances for my happiness.

So, the Gospel comes and says, "That has happened, convert" -- and I turn and I go the other way and I walk towards God and His satisfaction and His pleasure unerringly and relentlessly. That is what conversion is. That is why the Bible says, "If you believe it, you'll obey it." You don't sit in your cell and say "I believe you freed me, so that I don't need to escape." Its dumb, its dumb -- or I believe you freed me and I am trying to escape. The liberator says, "You don't believe it for a moment, because it has been done and I know full well that you are able to turn."

You can see that -- that is the emphasis in scripture. The emphasis in scripture is you have turned your attempt. The emphasis in scripture is not you give mental assent to this truth or you give an emotional assent to it. The emphasis in scripture is you change your life. Now, you can see that in one of the earliest ways the Gospel was ever preached is in Mark, and 1:15 "And saying" – This is after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of God and this is the way Jesus put the Gospel, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel.

Now do you see the order? If you don't repent, you don't believe in the Gospel. And indeed if you don't repent, you cannot believe in the Gospel. Do you see that its popular today in our kind of soft society in which we have grown up. To say, repent and believe in the Gospel, "yeah, yeah, we will repent and believe in the Gospel." Well, I know I can not repent, that is obvious, I can not repent, I can not stop living the way I am living. I see that all the books reinforced that idea in me. I can not repent. So, believe the Gospel and try to repent. That is it. And still that is what we say. We say, "I will believe the Gospel and I will try to repent." So, we call to the liberator in the passage way and we say, "Oh! I believe you freed me", Yep, I am trying to get free, I am trying to get free.

And Christ the liberator looks down with eyes of love and says, "Do you know the pain that I bore on Calvary? Do you know why I bore it? Do you know that it was because your miserable temper was in me and I allowed it to be burned out by my Father's wrath? Do you know that? Do you know that, that enslavement to people's opinion that works in your dear little heart? Do you know that I took it into mine in a miraculous eternal transaction and I allowed my Father's wrath to burn it out? Do you know that, that is why I suffered? I suffered to free you from that. I of all people know you are free. I of all people can call you to repent and believe the Gospel. I know, anybody else can pretend. They can philosophize, they can say no, no you've been -- you had the work done so that you could be forgiven. I know, I freed you, I destroyed your own-self in myself and I know you that you can now obey. That is why I have told you, Repent and believe the Gospel."

Repentance, is to change your mind, you change your whole attitude, you change your way of thinking. Do you see, how strongly Jesus puts it? Unless you repent, you will never believe the Gospel, and why I'm saying this is warning is, I think, it is very easy for us to become preoccupied with believing and not repent in our own lives and as a result of that our original intellectual belief remains purely superficial and has no real faith in it at all.

Actually, the first step in saying you believe that you were crucified with Christ the first step is repentance. You stop doing the things that the Holy Spirit has convicted you often in your conscience. Now, this isn't popular stuff, do you know that? The popular thing today is to say, "God will give you all the pleasure you want, whatever your like, whatever your attitude to Him is." But, do you see that, that is a Mockery of Jesus death on Calvary, it is a mockery. The whole purpose of Jesus death was to free you, so that you could obey your God.

Repent by agreeing with God. Start there, start with honest confession and the second step is real repentance and real repentance is not putting a sword into Jesus side, because that is what happens. Really, in God's heart that is what happens every time your sin. It is not putting a sword into His heart and saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That is not repentance.

Repentance is when I take my sword out and lay it down and surrender it to such a degree that I never expect to use that sword again. I will never think an unclean thought again whatever it may cost me personally. Whatever loss of pleasure it brings me I will never criticize that person again. Even if it leaves me open to other people opinions I will not sin. Repentance is you stop doing it and only then are you able to believe the Gospel, you see? Only then are you able to say, Lord Jesus, I believe that as I was put into you, so You are in me at this moment. If you are honest in your confession and honest in your repentance, then there will be a super natural conviction wrought inside you by the Holy Spirit, that Jesus is in you and that you are in Him.

Christ died on the cross and has set you free so that you could stop being unclean in your thoughts and in your mind, so that you could stop being jealous, stop being angry, stop being proud. That is why He died, so that you could stop those things. That's why He lovingly says to us "Repent". First of all repent. I know you can do it. I know it, because I died, so that you could repent."

Now God's word to you is, stand up and be free. Stand up this very day and be free and cast away all those past experiences where you have tried it before in your own. Stand up and be free and continue to stand up and be free until at last you are completely free. Christianity is a matter of action and life and not a matter of belief and feeling.

It is not logical. If you believe the chains are broken, you are free immediately. If you are still trying to get free, you do not believe the chains are broken. You know, the only reason I share it with you is, I think you are slaving under the old chains. I think you do have trouble with bad temper, anger, greed, envy and jealousy. You do have trouble with resentment against other people and a critical attitude towards your friends. You do and you are trying continually to get free of those things and you are continually thinking, "Well I do believe all that my old self was crucified with Christ but I just can not make it work for me".

The truth is, you do not really believe it, because you still think you can find a remedy yourself. You are still hoping that you can get rid of envy, jealousy and greed without leaving the dungeon of your own self-directed life, that is right. Really that is it, at the end of the day, you know. You want to be able to keep some chains on that you like, they look so nice, and you want to keep the door closed and locked when you want it closed and locked, because it keeps other people out and maintains your own privacy and your right to run your life as you want.

The Gospel is, Christ has set you free, come out! Your chains are cut and the door is unlocked, now stand up and enjoy your freedom.

I need to make this statement clear and simple as I can. You can not stay in your cell and be saved. I do not care what doctrine you agree with or give mental assent to. If you refuse to obey the Gospel by not coming out of your cell you are not saved. Either you believe your chains are cut and the door is unlocked and you are free and you obey by walking into freedom or you refuse to obey and stay in your cell. If you stay in your cell it is because you do not believe or you really do not want to leave the cell that you have got used to.

You either obey by leaving your cell or disobey by refusing to leave your cell. There is no other possibility. You can not be saved as long as you remain in your cell.

Which is your choice????????????????

Let us pray.

Dear Father, thank you for your words to us that if we walk in the light as you are in the light, the blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all sin. Thank you, Father, that if we set our hearts against all that is wrong in our lives, and we move towards an identification with Jesus with all our hearts, you will be merciful to us. Lord, you will not forgive those of us who camp on the sides of the river and try to get forgiveness without any deliverance in our own lives. Lord, we know that you will not tolerate the Pharisees or the hypocrites, so Lord we would come to you now, and Holy Spirit ask you, is there any way in which we are not entering into Jesus' death? Is there any sin in our lives that we need to be freed from, that you can free us from? Lord we know you'll forgive us until you free us, if we give our whole hearts and lives to you, for that freedom and deliverance. Lord we would do that this morning, trust you to make us people that live like your Son, and that will be enjoyable to be with in heaven. We ask this in His name.


 2008/2/1 13:58
bluinos
Member



Joined: 2005/2/4
Posts: 78


 Re: CHRISTIANITY IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT OBEDIENCE

This is an excellent post and heavenly prayer. I disagree with this statement and therefore must make a comment. It’s good to be back, hello my brothers and dear sister’s. It’s been awhile 2months I believe since my last post.

The door that God shuts no man can open and the door that God opens no man can shut, whether it be wood or bar/cell. There is a time however that God would have you to close the door, so that you may learn how to hear him, and so that you may learn how to hear other voices as well. Can you tell me when is it that you hear God’s voice?

 2008/2/1 14:28Profile









 Obey the Gospel!

Rom 10:16; "But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?"

Mat 7:21; "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

Heb 5:8; "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him;

2 Th 1:7-9; "And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;"

 2008/2/1 17:44





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